The Graduate

I was driving my car back from work listening to a local radio station when I heard this ad for a private university here in Kuwait …

The ad was as follows: a Kuwaiti (supposedly) mother and her recent highschool graduate daughter … the daughter was like “I graduated now what?” …. the mother was like ” no question, ****** college in Kuwait ..” then she talks about the university for a while and the mother ends it with ” ****** college is my choice!” …( now i think it was the mother from the voice )

When I heard “the above” i realized how true this is to most young Kuwaitis … highschool kids graduating not knowing what to pursue … lacking interests and lacking individuality … It also reminded me of a conversation I once heard of parents discussing and making decisions of what THEY want their kids to study after highschool… … As a result we end up with a high number of engineers, doctors and business major only with a few who really continue in a successful career (and it is usually those passionate about it) … we also end up lacking in advancing creative fields ..

In some cultures I’ve noticed that parents encouraged their kids to work hard in fields such as sports and arts to receive a scholarship from the government or university … Now I know many amazing parents in Kuwait who raised their kids into following their dreams … into guiding them but never forcing them … but I am looking here at the bigger picture … the picture that influenced such ad to play in the local radio station…

I really don’t know who is responsible here … the kid who lead a purposeless life growing up (sorry but I had to exaggerate here) … or the parents who failed to encourage their child’s individuality and confidence … or the government for not bringing such environment into schools and society in general making kids today interested in food, shopping malls, BBs, electronics, car chasing and spending money…( which are all valid interests since we are advancing into the future here … but I personally consider them general interests )… rather than theatres, sports, arts, science etc..

I remember once towards the end of my highschool years my parents said something that I thought was funny at the time..they said ” go study whatever you want as long as you like it … even if its dancing” .. It was funny because me and dancing do not get a long at all (regardless of my failed attempts at salsa) .. but now I got the point … unfortunately I didn’t get it at the time

Very very true!
I try to encourage my kids to do everything…and sometimes force them to do it so in the end they can decide what they want for themselves.
Something I had the privilige to learn when I was a kid and we do not have it here, we had something called General Culture Education, this subject is about learning about things which we do not have enough time to learn about in class rooms, arts, sciences, music, history, journalism, sports… with a group of parents I formed this club which is once a week and the kids learn about things they normally do not know about in schools. It helps the child to have a diversity of knowledge and interest. I just wish we have something like this in schools here.

I hope I am not forcing my kids to do whatever I think is right for them. As long as they work hard, they can pursue anything they want. That is what I like from the North American education, which encourages individual’s talents beyond the parents’ boundaries. How could we parents think we are better than our children?